( 1U ) 



the reclamation as a fuel and fodder reserve of a tract of nearly 

 3,000 acres close to the town ; of this tract six-sevenths consisted 

 of barren^ waste largely intersected by ravines. The proprietors 

 were to provide funds for enclosure, the management was to remain 

 in the hands of the Collector and the profits accruing from the 

 sale of grass and fuel were to be distributed pro rata among the 

 co-sharers. Grazing was to be excluded, trees, and in particular 

 the babul, to be sown and embankments to be thrown across the 

 ravines. The cost of fencing, plantation and sowing was about 

 Es. 1,100 and was paid by the zainindars. The Collector spent 

 Es. 675 in raising embankments. Up to the year 1892 the average 

 annual income from the plantation was Es. 650. By that year 

 all expenses had been paid off and the zamindars had received 

 Es. 275 in profits. The timber was then, tnough very young, 

 already worth more than Es. 1,000, and the lease for the cutting 

 of grass and collection of dry wood sold for Es. 900 yearly. It had 

 not then become possible to allow grazing. In 1902 the zamindars, 

 with the Collector's consent, leased the forest to Messrs. Cooper, 

 Allen and Co., for fifty years at a yearly rental of Es. 1,416 

 and a cash payment for fixtures of Es. 5,000. Under the terms 

 of the lease a third of the area was to remain open for grazing. 

 This instructive and successful experiment thus passed out of the 

 hands of the local authorities and landholders, who have no longer 

 a direct interest in its success. It has since been exploited by 

 Messrs. Copper, Allen and Co., for the extraction of babul bark 

 for tanning purposes. It still, however, provides grazing and 

 cheap fuel to the town of Etawah and is said to have mitigated the 

 severity of its climate. 



8. With a similarly dual object, agricultural and economical, 

 the Lieutenaut-Goveruor has recently devoted Es. 70,000 to the 

 acquisition of babul-growing areas in the Hamirpur district. 

 These plantations are intended, on the one hand, to preserve and 

 make available to the tanning industry the supplies of babul bark 

 essential to its existence and incidentally to derive from that 

 industry an adequate income, and on the other hand to serve the 

 interests of the land itself by preventing denudation and erosion, 

 by arresting the cutting-back of ravines and by providing reserves 

 of fodder and fuel. There is so much good land for babul planta- 

 tions in the Hamirpur district outside the ravine area th^t it has 

 been determined to postpone extension of this process to the ravine 

 land of that district till funds are available and till the Kalpi 

 experiment has given more definite results. 



9. The Kilpi enterprise also owes its inception to the anxiety 

 awakened in the tanning industry by the prospect of diminishing 



